We are proud to share that RVI portfolio company Machine Metrics just completed an $11.3 million Series A round. Our hats off to the team!

At MachineMetrics, our mission has always been to provide manufacturers with the data they need to increase productivity, win more business, and remain globally competitive. Of course, achieving a successful mission for any business requires an incredible dedication, perseverance, and unwavering belief in yourself, your team, and what you stand for.

Today, we’re excited to share with you one of our greatest successes to date:

MachineMetrics has raised $11.3 million dollars in venture capital funding to continue leading the endeavor to bring analytics to manufacturing.

BOSTON and NEW YORK, Dec. 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — Pixm, the industry’s first endpoint-based anti-phishing solution, emerged from stealth today with next-gen spear-phishing protection in the company’s flagship solution. Through advanced computer vision technology, Pixm shuts down phishing attacks at the point of the user’s click regardless of their location, device or phishing link source.

Co-founded by Chris Cleveland, CEO, and Arun K. Buduri, President, Pixm was created to address the significant hole that exists in the anti-phishing ecosystem. Today’s popular anti-phishing solutions rely on blacklisting to stop only the already known phishing attacks but do little to address new attacks. Pixm’s solution is designed to detect and shut down a new zero-day phishing attack within the browser at the moment the page is opened in real-time using computer vision. 

Western-Massachusetts based angel network River Valley Investors (RVI) completed an investment in a Launch413, local company founded by RVI’s manager Paul Silva and RVI member Rick Plaut.

Launch413 takes startups from Launch to their first $10 million in revenue. The company is made up of serial entrepreneurs and veteran executives who accelerate entrepreneur’s progress by investing their expertise & networks to provide strategies and introductions that would have taken years to acquire otherwise.

“I deliberately didn’t bring Launch413 to RVI, feeling it it was inappropriate for me (as the group’s manager) to take up a presentation slot. However, individual members of the group kindly insisted that Rick and I present. We closed the round that afternoon thanks to the support of many RVI members. Now the real work begins!“ Said Paul Silva, Launch413’s Managing Partner.

Western-Massachusetts based angel network River Valley Investors (RVI) completed an investment in Freedom Wind Tunnel, an indoor skydiving company from Boston.

Freedom Wind is installing a brand new indoor skydiving facility at Patriot Place in Boston. The company is planning to provide an entertainment experience to patrons of all ages. With the help of Freedom Wind, Boston may soon give Chicago a competitor for the title of “Windy City”.

“This is not a ‘normal’ deal for angel investors. Neal’s depth of knowledge and ability to build coalitions took an idea that we would have avoided into one we were excited about. His model for financing and absolute commitment to keeping us informed closed the deal,“ said RVI Manager Paul Silva.

Freedom Wind CEO Neal Gouck said, “River Valley's Leadership in this round allows for the construction and commissioning of the facility at Patriot Place.”

This is River Valley Investors first investment in Freedom Wind Tunnel.

Western-Massachusetts based angel network River Valley Investors (RVI) completed an investment in a Valt, a Western Massachusetts-based cybersecurity company.

Valt makes it easy for anyone to have a truly secure and unique password for every website they visit, without the impossible task of needing to remember them all. Their solution competes with other password management systems like those from LastPass and 1Password.

“The existing password management solutions aren’t easy for normal people to use, they are products created by programmers, for programmers. Valt’s intuitive solution offers the opportunity to bring strong security to us mere mortals,” said RVI Manager Paul Silva.

Valt CEO Brent Heeringa shares, “Valt is thrilled to have support from investors in Western Massachusetts and looks forward to a strong and fruitful relationship with RVI.”

Western-Massachusetts based angel network River Valley Investors invested in 3DFortify, and completed a follow-on investment in Cambridge Blockchain early this year.

3DFortify was a MassChallenge finalist, and the company went on to become a 2016 Gold Prize winner. In 2017, the company won the JEC Group’s 2017 International Startup award. The company combines 3D printing and magnetics to create aligned reinforced carbon fiber composites. “Our patented technologies allow for cheaper, faster, and the most complex composite manufacturing to date,” writes CEO Josh Martin. “We are ushering in a new generation of custom, high performance products.” River Valley Investors participated in a syndicated seed round, led by Mainspring Capital Partners in Boston and Prelude Ventures in San Francisco.

Cambridge Blockchain, an alum of Valley Venture Mentors and with roots in Western Massachusetts, offers a proprietary software stack that has the potential to dramatically strengthen identity verification tools. The startup has recently entered into a partnership with IHS Markit, a UK-based data analysis firm. The recent funding, in combination with this partnership will allow the company to bring it’s secure and client-controlled peer-to-peer data sharing platform to big banks.

About Cambridge Blockchain:

About River Valley Investors:

River Valley Investors (RVI) is Western Massachusetts' angel investor network, including successful entrepreneurs and executives dedicated to helping each other find, evaluate and profitably invest in exciting companies with significant growth potential. www.rivervalleyinvestors.com.

Among these investments is New York City-based Pixm, a company that utilizes deep learning technologies to stop phishing breaches. Pixm was a MassChallenge finalist. “River Valley Investors’ investment in Pixm will help enable us to hire the data scientists and data architects we need to grow our product,” Arun Buduri, the company’s Chief Product Officer explains.

Relativity6 is a Cambridge-based company that assists insurance companies and other enterprise clients in better understanding their customers. The company uses state of the art machine learning tools to increase customer engagement, and reactivate unresponsive customers. “We call our proprietary system of algorithms 'behavioral listening algorithms' because we've trained our models to tune into strictly action based variables, leaving subjectivity aside,” writes Alan Ringwald.

Alan went on to comment that “RVI has been the most professional and organized angel group I've worked with. They were very transparent and delivered exactly what they promised, I'd recommend them to any entrepreneur.”

Infinite Composites Technologies builds composite tanks that are lighter and store more gas. CEO Matt Villarreal writes that, “These funds [from River Valley Investors] will enable ICT to secure a number of pending contracts in the space industry as well as contribute more resources to sales and marketing. Working with RVI has been a great experience. They are organized, thoughtful and transparent which makes them a great capital source for startups.”

About Infinite Composites Technologies:

About River Valley Investors:

River Valley Investors (RVI) is Western Massachusetts' angel investor network, including successful entrepreneurs and executives dedicated to helping each other find, evaluate and profitably invest in exciting companies with significant growth potential. www.rivervalleyinvestors.com.

About RVI

The River Valley Investors (RVI) is a group of successful entrepreneurs and executives dedicated to helping each other find, evaluate, and profitably invest in exciting companies with significant growth potential.

Our Sponsors:

River Valley Investors

Of Springfield, Massachusetts

The River Valley Investors (RVI) is Western Massachusetts's angel investor network. We are successful entrepreneurs and executives dedicated to helping each other find, evaluate, and profitably invest in exciting companies with significant growth potential. When we invest, we prefer to do so in companies where we have relevant domain expertise and connections so that we can help our entrepreneurs achieve success.